Monday, December 26, 2005

Quizzes!

...These quizzes are Anglo-centric, so we Americans have a cultural handicap, even if we are Anglophiles. I was embarrassed once on a flight to England. I was trying to do a British crossword, and recognized that many of the questions would be very easy if I'd been living in England for a while, watching English TV and reading English periodicals. But I hadn't, so couldn't name personalities or political figures. The flight attendant looked over my shoulder and said, "you don't know the answer to that one?" Not meanly, just because it was common knowledge to him.